scalebane

Here's my take on the concept of "intended" and "exploiting."

In a dynamic system like we have, where players have the ability to make a decision and possibly think outside the box, it is the responsibility of the developers to place limitations on what their game allows AT THE TIME OF INCEPTION.

My favorite example of it all is the first kill of Lord Sanctus Seru back in the old days of EQ1. The developers CHOSE to put Seru in without putting in the access quest. They CHOSE not to make his building sealed on top. When someone realized this, they found that they could have their enchanters duel the raid members, gravity flux them to the top of Seru's building, and drop in from above to attack.
No exploiting or unintended use of any information, ability, or third party programming was used to cause any of this to happen, yet SoE punished these people anyway.

This is thinking outside the box. SoE's failure to extract their heads from their collective ass and remember that their system is not based on selecting options from a menu, but rather by people thinking for themselves, does not mean something has been exploited.

ANYTHING THAT MAKES IT INTO THE LIVE GAME SHOULD BE ASSUMED WORKING AS INTENDED. SoE's FAILURE TO PROPERLY PROGRAM, SCRIPT, AND TEST EVENTS SHOULD NOT BECOME THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PLAYERS.

We can talk all we want about how JoeSchmoe of SoandSO exploited a broken encounter, circumvented the way it was "intended," or whatever else you want to call it. The fact of the matter is that if SoE is prepared to release content into the game, then that content is working as intended, regardless of any tweaks / ajdustments etc.. that have to be made to it later.

While I do agree with you, BrightMorn , that the Devs have the final say on if something is working as intended, it's my opinion that anything released into the live environment should be considered to have that Dev Seal of Approval.

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Argyuile

I agree that both of these are excellent examples of multiple ways to kill a mob BUT. Come on, who didn't know that you where SUPPOSED to drop pawbuster in his pit? We all just did it the other way cause it was easier. I mean was anybody the least bit surprised when the encounter changed so you couldn't just burn him down? Of course not because we all knew that was the "wrong" way to kill him.

What about other mechanics like ghosting through a wall or whatever to get past Drusk and is that any different than /yelling the Rumbler in T7?

Having said all of that I feel like most "exploiting" occurs when SoE fucks up an encounter. The rumbler being a prime example. The encounter is so fucked up that nobody can beat it, so instead we have to find a way around it until SoE fixed the encounter.

I haven't personally fought druusk yet but from what I'm reading the rumbler parallels are huge.

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Manratten

This seems like a good question to me. (For what it is worth)

My personal stance is pretty much, if you didn't do anything except hit buttons, cast spells, do CA's, that kind of thing, then you are doing fine. If they change it and you can no longer do it, it doesn't mean you did anything wrong, it just means you thought outside the box and did something a developer (or two/three/whatever) didn't foresee. It is understandbale to want to try various things, and understandable that you'll try things the developers did not envision. Doing something the developers didn't envision and them changing it doesn't make you or your guild some band of demons, it just means they had to change because you and your guild did something unexpected.

On a related sidenote....the two vampires in MMIS. I always thought that two fights were goofiest things I had ever heard. They are wussy beyond belief for the first 90%, do and AoE and heal up, and repeat unless you blow them down. UNLESS, you stun/stifle them then they just skip it and go down faster than a whore during Mardis Gras. I always wondered...was THAT what we were supposed to do? What the hell was that all about?

Dif example in other direction....Maidens. The first guy has a wild AoE bomb, The Sandstorm does a Stoneskin add bonanza, the Sisters come at you from all sides, and Drussella has her goofball dodn't attack me or else spell...but there is a ridiculous named in the Gearbox room that....Doesn't do a freaking thing. What the hell....was something forgotten here? Just wondering.

Manratten

However, if you really want to know who decides…when it comes to WW1st and this website…

No matter how you kill something, if you do it first….it is an exploit. Case closed, end of story.

Killed in under 3 pulls? Mob was total weaksauce, SoE should be burned to the ground for allowing such a pathetic untested mob in the game, and you and your guild are exploiters for taking advantage. The fact no other guild has done it means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

Killed in over 10 pulls? You and your guild are total n00bsauce, for taking “sooo long” to kill an obviously weakass mob, and you exploited the other guilds on other servers time constraints. The only reason guildx didn’t kill it was they were busy doing something so unbelievably superior to anything your guild could have done, it defied all rationality for them to try and WW1st some gimp mob.

Killed by pulling into water…another room….wall? Total exploit…everyone knows pulling a mob any more than 0.027 microns is a total exploit…unless their guild did it first. Since your guild did it first, any sane mofo who ever heard of Pacman could realize The Mob has a knockback, which will toss the raid party all over creation, so it is obvious to the biggest noob that SoE intended all mobs with knockback to be faced by getting thrown all over.

Killed by pulling into water 3 timezones away? Yeah, that’s even worse!! First you are avoiding the knockback, and NOW avoiding the adds that leashed…that is total Ragu with no seasons weaksauce…sans cheese!! It is clear the adds were meant to be fought, so anything you do to avoid adds is a ridiculous exploit of the encounter.

To reiterate..anything you and your guild do is an exploit, if you do it before we do it. If we do it first, it is either: Working as intended, or we are circumventing it legally because of gross negligence and stupidity on SoE’s fault!!

Widem

It was b/c you were suppose to use Stakes...hmm stakes came from EH you say? Well so did wolfsbane. hmmm thats weird isnt it?

Somehow somewhere the communication between the Devs got screwed up and MMIS was suppose to be the end of progression, not EH and at the end of the day...months they confused themselves.

Thats why that has always bothered you.

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Manratten

Widem:
yeah, while that is true that it seemed messed up to need Wolfsbane from EH to fight Mayong, that's not really what I meant.

I meant the first time we killed those two Vamps, we just burned them down after using AoE blockers. The second time, the never did the AoE because it was stun/stifled. (I to this day don't know which, laugh) I've always wondered if the stifle thing is what they had in mind.

Widem

yeah and i said the way you were probably intended to kill them were by using stakes, the ones that dropped in EH before everyone could buy them.

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Manratten

Aaahh, my bad, I see what you mean.

I was thinking you meant to stake them so they wouldn't come after us when we fought Mayong.

Crabbok

Good post, seems to represent the overall attitude towards encounter mechanics in this game


ANother cool example of a mob that coudl be done multiple wasy was T5's The Krathuk. if you killed all his adds, then he'd despawn and the Breserk Krathuk would spawn... (Or something like that). But you didn't have to kill all the adds, you coudl leave one of them up to prevent berserk from spawning. 2 very different ways to do taht fight.... the harder of the 2 yielding more rewards.

I'd like to see something like a dragon with 2 rooms, a red room and a blue room behind him. If you pull him to the red room, he's somewhat easy... 1 aoe you joust... and he drops 1 piece of loot. If you pull him to the blue room he's more complex and you have to have 8 raid members clicking statues, and peopel crouching, walking, jumping and looking straight at the cieling with a candycane equipped in main hand slot... if you beat him taht way he drops better or more loot.

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Lord Pantz

I decide whats intended.

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Pants.